Home Sweet Home: Working from home and employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK

Abstract

In 2020, many governments responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by encouraging employees to work from home (WFH). Using the recent waves of representative data from the UK, we find that the pandemic-led increases in WFH frequency are associated with a higher self-perceived hourly productivity among the employed respondents. Interestingly, changes in WFH frequency are unrelated to the respondents' weekly working hours and weekly wages during the same period. While the WFH-productivity association is more substantial in non-lockdown months, it is notably inexistent during the months of strict lockdowns, underscoring that the lockdown measures inhibited the baseline association. Notably, the WFH-productivity association is weaker among parents with increased homeschooling needs due to school closures implemented during lockdowns. In addition, our effect heterogeneity analysis underlines the role of crucial job-related characteristics in the baseline association. Finally, looking at the future of WFH, we show that employees' recent WFH experience and subsequent hourly productivity changes are intimately associated with their desire to undertake WFH in the future.

Keywords: Working from home, employee performance, productivity, COVID-19 pandemic

JEL Classification: J13, J22, J24